PUTRAJAYA, March 19 — Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail today rejected concerns that the government’s proposed constitutional amendments regarding citizenship would cause more foundlings to be stateless in Malaysia.
Saifuddin Nasution said that he welcomes feedback from all parties, but asked that they also consider his perspective on this matter.
“Under Article 15A is an application by registration in the category, one, an illegitimate child, where the parent is not yet official as a husband and wife, the child is born first.
“The second under 15A is adopted. The third, the child under care. Most of these abandoned children when they are older, means he's 5 years old, 7 years, 10 years old, 15A is the way they became a citizen. The other is that if there is an age of 18, 19 he will be processed according to article 19. Naturalisation is also a registry. If we change it via registration, is the door to becoming a citizen closed? No, no.
“Criticism out there is that because of these changes, there’s no chance, more kids going to be stateless, and then the talk is long about not being able to go to school, the health bill is high, but what we’re going to call this is see exactly what the government is closing its doors? The answer is that they continue to be processed on a registration basis,” he said after a citizenship decision letter submission ceremony, here.
Article 15A of the Federal Constitution currently provides the government special powers to register persons under 21 years of age as citizens while Section 19B from part three of the Second Schedule obliges the government to confer citizenship automatically to foundlings.
Saifuddin Nasution said engagement sessions with MPs are ongoing and that the constitutional amendment will be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat as soon as the briefings are finished.
“I still continue with my briefing with Perikatan Nasional, I answer all the things they raised. I present the purpose of the application and so on,” he said.
When proposing the amendments last October, the government said it would address problems plaguing foreign-born children of Malaysian women with non-citizen husbands, who do not automatically gain citizenship, unlike the offspring of Malaysian men in similar circumstances.
Civil society groups have objected to the proposed amendments that would also affect children born out of wedlock to Malaysian men, stateless children adopted by Malaysian parents, foundlings or children who were abandoned (including those abandoned upon birth), and families with generations of stateless children born in Malaysia.
The amendment that would affect foundlings and abandoned children involves Section 19B, Part III of the Second Schedule which sought to amend from citizenship by “operation of law” to citizenship by “registration”.
The effect of this amendment would be that foundlings and abandoned children will no longer be entitled to automatic citizenship.
Earlier today, former Malaysian Bar president Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan described the proposed amendments as the government “waging war” against children as it would strip foundlings of their constitutional right to citizenship.
Read Malay Mail's summary of the five proposed regressive amendments and their effects.
